


Our Souls to Keep

by Mohini



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 05:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15575217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: Dreams should be restorative. Dreams should provide safe processing space. Dreams should absolutely, positively, not mean Steve's watching Bucky fall apart in the corner. Again.





	Our Souls to Keep

Natasha’s gotten a lot of ominous text messages over the last few years. Being an Avenger does that to a person. This one might well take first prize.

_I need you, please. Door’s not locked_. – Steve

She answers immediately that she’s on her way, stashes a few weapons in her boots and belt, and all but sprints out of her apartment and up the stairs. She’s easing Steve’s door open only a few short minutes later, and is fully prepared to find a scene out of a horror movie. Instead, she follows the sound of someone sobbing in broken Russian to the bedroom where Steve is sitting on the floor a few feet from an utterly terrified looking James Barnes. He’s curled into a fetal ball, shaking and bawling, begging in hysterical Russian.

“What happened?” she asks softly, dropping into a crouch next to Steve.

“I wish I knew. He came in to take a nap and I could hear him yelling, tried to wake him up and got this. I don’t think he can understand English and every time I touch him he howls like he’s been scalded,” Steve replies in a barely audible whisper.

“Shit,” Natasha mutters. She knows enough of how her training went to know that Barnes was treated anything but gently. There are enough skeletons dancing in his closet to fill a graveyard and those are probably the least of what could have caused this.

“Soldat?” she asks, pitching her voice just loud enough to be heard.

In answer, Barnes curls up even tighter, his frantic begging shooting upward in pitch. She takes a minute to listen carefully, to pick words from the garbled mess. Then she understands exactly what’s happened.

“Steve, you need to leave,” she tells the man next to her. He nods, and leaves without questions. It’s been a hard won trust, but he knows that she is more than capable of defending herself if need be. More importantly, he knows that she will never hurt his Bucky.

She edges closer, still out of easy reach but close enough to speak softly and still be heard. “James,” she repeats a few times until he seems to recognize the sound as a word. “He’s dead, James. Pierce is dead. You are safe.”

She keeps up the three simple sentences, her cadence slow and voice barely above a whisper. She wants to grab him and hold tight. The shaking in his body so pronounced it makes her hurt just to watch. He’s repeating over and over that he will be good, that he will be nice, to _pleasepleaseplease_ be gentle. It’s wrong, deeply wrong on so many levels.

“James, say it with me, please. Pierce is dead.” Natasha commands, her voice just a little harder. The words are dutifully repeated, again and again and then James goes utterly still. His eyes are wide and she realizes a half a second too late what that means. He gags, the sound deep and painful, and if there is any mercy at least there is no actual vomiting.

“You’re safe,” she tells him, edging a tiny bit closer and putting the tips of her fingers against his shoulder. He flinches, and then gradually relaxes into the touch. He is following her orders, even between ragged panic breathing.

She carefully moves closer until she can guide him to rest his head in her lap. “I’ve got you, James, you’re safe,” she tells him over and over. He goes quiet, nodding his acknowledgement of the words. Long fingers thread through tangled hair until his breathing slows and evens out.

“Can you tell me where you are?” she asks.

“Home?” he replies, and she breathes out a sigh when it registers that the word is in English.

“Yes. You’re home. You with me now?”

“Mmhmm,” he murmurs. “Steve?”

“He called me. You forgot your English there for a bit. Do you want me to call him back?”

“Please.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr @ https://mohini-musing.tumblr.com/


End file.
